4. I am trying to make a Tiger Strike/Dragon Claw Assassin, with Blade Fury and Venom on the side and a maxed Shadow Master. With a side of fries. Will this work?

Thanks for your help guys.

Click to expand...

3. after you finished or almost finished fishy build, you still have some skill points left (if you don't max CE, you will finish Fishy build below 60) which gives you good points into poison dagger, I think it will work.

I don't think that zeal with this build is worth that. 4 points will be enough , as you will need skill points to max your elemental auras. Just hire a normal offensive merc , put on angelic ammy and 2 rings and your ar should be ok. I think

Maxing Zeal will help, all though you may want to consider putting points into sacrifice, as it will increase your Zeal damage, and give you more physical damage to help with the cold (Cold immunes should not be a problem with good Zeal damage)

4. I am trying to make a Tiger Strike/Dragon Claw Assassin, with Blade Fury and Venom on the side and a maxed Shadow Master. With a side of fries. Will this work? .

Click to expand...

I think it's changed a little since 1.09, but adding Tiger Strike to Dragon Claw is probably a waste of skill points--4 DCs are going to be in the same neighborhood damage wise as 3 TS + 1 DC. If you want great single-target damage with dual-claw, I'd put those points into Claw Mastery. Without any other area-of-effect damage a strong argument could be made for one of the elemental charge-ups or Death Sentry instead.

A maxed Shadow Master is great, but if you're looking to save points somewhere you probably don't have to put 20 into it. A lot of people who want a tough SM aim for slvl 17 after skill-adders. That's the point at which the SM gets all their best equipment. Slvl 18 will give the SM one additional point in all the skills she uses, so that's what I would aim for. With some +shadow gear (which you'll want for some of your other skills anyway) you won't have to put in nearly that many points. If at that point you decide she isn't holding up as well as you'd like, obviously you can go ahead and max it.

I think one of his other concerns was CI/PI on the same monster, which isn't all that uncommon. In that case, I think it would be wiser to to lower the other resistances of the monsters (conviction), and then hit them with other elemental damage (vengeance).

I think one of his other concerns was CI/PI on the same monster, which isn't all that uncommon. In that case, I think it would be wiser to to lower the other resistances of the monsters (conviction), and then hit them with other elemental damage (vengeance).

Click to expand...

And, the conviction will break immunities. The monsters will still have high cold resistance but with the massave cold damage boost from resist cold and salvation, plus the fire and lightning damage boost from salvation, CIs and CI/PIs should go down.

And, the conviction will break immunities. The monsters will still have high cold resistance but with the massave cold damage boost from resist cold and salvation, plus the fire and lightning damage boost from salvation, CIs and CI/PIs should go down.

Click to expand...

That makes sense.

I think it's changed a little since 1.09, but adding Tiger Strike to Dragon Claw is probably a waste of skill points--4 DCs are going to be in the same neighborhood damage wise as 3 TS + 1 DC. If you want great single-target damage with dual-claw, I'd put those points into Claw Mastery. Without any other area-of-effect damage a strong argument could be made for one of the elemental charge-ups or Death Sentry instead.

Click to expand...

In terms of area damage, I was planning on using Blade Fury in conjunction with venom. Does this work very well?

In terms of area damage, I was planning on using Blade Fury in conjunction with venom. Does this work very well?

Click to expand...

By itself, no. Blade Fury will only target one critter at a time. Sure, you can spray it, but the effectiveness then tends to be pretty minimal.

Maybe you have some equipment that will make BF into an area weapon--the Crescent Moon or Chaos runewords, for instance. That would change things a lot. Otherwise you're going to have to look elsewhere for area damage, unless you can just content yourself with knocking down monsters one at a time.

A good way to get around this would be Death Sentry. It's got its limitations, but there aren't any area damage solutions available in the Assassin's skill trees for so few points. A 10-point DS is a force to be reckoned with through the whole course of the game. A 10-point Phoenix Strike or Lightning Sentry is insignificant from late Nightmare on.

There's a nice guide to Blade Fury/Death Sentry Assassins in the Strategy Compendium. It's also a good introduction to Assassin skills in general.

Hrmm.. call me crazy (you will).. but wouldn't using an EthEthEthEthShaelShael weapon on the holy freezadin be enough to NOT worry about AR? I don't know how -100% target defense works exactly.. but its a suggestion

When I played my freezing Zealot I loaded up with alot of crushing blow for me and my merc. If he's CI you will kill him within a few seconds with crushing blow. I did well with a Crushflange playing this build Iron Maiden will not hit you that hard if you are using Crushflange.
If he's both PI and CI. You could run or put some points in Vengeance and conviction.

2. Fire druid. I think I want to max the first four fire skills and grizzly. Will this do ok? I am paranoid as to whether or not this guy can make it.

Click to expand...

Might work, especially if SC. The missing ingredient is life for your Grizzly and merc. They take a pounding, especially from ranged attacks, and would be helped with at least a mid-range (lvl10) Oak Sage - not to mention your Druid. The vines are nice utilities, but certainly optional. I went with wolves instead of grizzly for crowd control (again life boost was helpful) - 1 pt in the bear though for certain situations.

Maybe i'm stupid , but i'm keeping my opinion , that maxing holy shock will help much more than points into vengeance , conviction. Offcourse , 1 point is worth it , but holy shock maxed does up to 1600 damage at slvl 20 , and doesnt require a good weapon as zeal + sacrifice does. And its only 20 points instead 40. It's your choise .